2019 Scallion: Extra Edition

You know, Vic always gives me more pictures than I can use in The Scallion, but I always want to use them all, so with apologies to Paul Harvey, here's ... the rest of the story.

I'd like to start with more pictures of our yard menagerie.

Goldfinch at the feeder

Western tiger swallowtail (I think)

Rufous hummingbird (I think)

Rufous hummingbird (I think—don't judge me; I could just say "bird")

Our raccoon family

The fox

The skunk

This last picture is one I took through the living room window. She looks so soft and fluffy, I just want to pet her. You know who doesn't want to pet her? Our neighbor two doors down. His dog went out early one morning and got sprayed. Oops.

Here are a few beautiful scenic pictures Vic took:

Lunar eclipse in January

Cool sunspot in April

Moonset in April—and not to rub it in, but for those of you who don't know,
this is the view from our bedroom window.

What's that you say? You want to know what I got from the Chocolate Fest? Well, I just happen to have such a photo. Yes, it is a lot. But I did give one piece to Vic, so ...

And here's a fun, oddball picture: the world's largest sticker ball, which resides right here in Longmont:

Here's a great picture of Vic's family after Aunt Eddie's funeral:

Clockwise from bottom left: Alice Harris, Becky Sauer, Vic, Patty LaBriola, Debbie Hines
Alice and Patty are Vic's sisters, and Becky and Debbie are their cousins—Aunt Eddie's daughters.

Now, I know some of you are thinking "Did they really see Dinger at the baseball game?" Yes. Yes, we did. Here's a picture of that plus another one from the game and one of the Long Island Loves.

L to R: Zoe Welter, Lisa LaBriola-Welter, Patty LaBriola, Brady Love, Gianna Welter,
Katy Love, Alice Harris, Patty Love, Liz Love, with Dinger in the back

Let's go, Rockies1

L to R: Liz, Katy, Ryan, Brady and Bryan Love

Now I'm just going to put in a smattering of dresses that I liked from the Dior exhibit—there were just so many gorgeous gowns! If dresses aren't your thing, skip to the end, where there are more pictures of our family Christmas photo session.

This was Nicole Kidman's dress from one of the Oscar ceremonies.

This was Anne Hathaway's.

I often see a dress on the red carpet and wonder whether the star looked in the mirror before venturing out.
This was one of those dresses. "What are those, feathers? Ridiculous!" I remember thinking. But in person,
oh, my, this dress (which was worn by Zoe Kravitz) is stunning IRL. I'll keep my judgey mouth shut next year.

I don't remember who wore the front dress, but the
black dress in the back was Charlize Theron's.

Anybody remember that year Jennifer Lawrence tripped up the stairs at the Oscars?
This was the evil dress that tripped her.

The making of a family photo
Every year, it's a chore to get Bella to take our family Christmas photo. She emphatically does not like the camera. This year, I was tired. I didn't want to get dressed up and spend an hour trying to get one decent picture of us with Bella, so when I saw Bella playing with Vic under the Christmas tree, I snapped a photo and thought, "Done."

Ah, but Vic's a photographer, and he's not gonna let a persnickety dog keep him from his appointed rounds. So it starts with this: trying to get Bella in on the side where she won't feel fenced in. As you can see, she feels fenced in.

Then we try getting her in the middle. Not much of a success.

So I try luring her with treats.

"I know you are hiding a treat in your hand."

Solo works well, so what if we add Vic?

"I will take the treat, but I will not pose for your stupid picture."

"I'm not gonna show my face. That's what they want."

Obviously, we got one good picture and put it in The Scallion. And then we just hung around and took a couple pictures of us by ourselves.

Hope you enjoyed this extra edition of The Scallion! See you next year!

The 2019 Scallion: And You Thought We Couldn't Find Anything Funny to Write About

OK, that subject line may be true. It was challenging to get out from under the crap sandwich that was 2019.

I'll let you be the judge as to whether we succeeded. Without further ado, The Scallion!



(P.S. See that icon on the right side underneath the frame? If you hover over it, it says Full Screen. That will open up The Scallion full size.)

Thanks for your loyal readership, Scallioneers!

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Seasons Eatings! (It's worth the click.)

With love,

Vic, Patty and Bella

P.S. I mentioned Vic's cancer in The Scallion, but I neglected to add a link to The Cancer Blog. Consider yourself linked.

You Thought The Scallion Was Boring? Here's More of It! (aka Vic's Pictures!)

You know, The Scallion only fits so much, and even though we are boring, we incessantly document our boringness in pictures, so here goes.

First, more pictures of Anna, our first foster dog of the year.

Here's Bella photo-bombing Anna:

 Here's Anna lying on me (she was not a shy dog for long) with Bella nestled between me and Vic:

Here's Anna staring out the window, which she did a lot. She really was a beautiful dog.

Next, a couple of movies of Anna. This is Anna rolling on my towel after my shower. I included this video because this is something our beloved Wags used to do, and Anna is the first foster dog we've ever had who did it too. This towel and the yellow one in the background were both on the bed. She pulled them both off and pulled this blue one halfway across the room. It was so cute!

And this is Bella and Anna playing. Now Bella, she has never played with a toy in the entire time we've had her—and we gave her every toy we had in the house. But the first time Anna grabbed one of these toys, boy howdy Bella went right after her.

Anna was a handful, but we really loved her by the time she left.

Speaking of a dog being a handful, Ollie. When we first brought Ollie home, she tried to jump our six-foot fence to get out! We thought, "Oh, man, we are never gonna get her settled down." Duh, we were wrong:

She was exceedingly cute:

And she loved treats as much as Bella did:

This one, we almost kept. But Bella really retreated while we had Ollie. She didn't sit with us in the family room while we watched TV, she didn't sleep with us, she didn't follow me around. She spent a lot of time in the basement. So in the end, we had to let Ollie go. Fortunately, she found an excellent home and is thriving there. Her new parents spoil her even more than we would have, and we are legendary dog spoilers.

And because you can never have enough Bella pictures:

We went to Nebraska a couple of times this year—once in the spring, when my dad and I wore matching shirts ...

... and I got to visit my beloved Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Jim ...

... and once in late summer for my dad's 80th birthday.

Dad and me (duh):

Dad and Norma:

Dad, Norma and all of us kids:

 And this is our whole damn family:

Speaking of family, my sister and I drove out ahead of time, and then my brother-in-law, nephew, and great niece and nephew joined us for the party. Yes, they are dorks.

Now, I'm sure the description of Vic's car accident in The Scallion made some of you wonder what actually happened. Well, Vic was stopped at a stop light when he was hit from behind (which pushed him into the monster truck in front of him). The kid who was driving seemed nice, Vic said, and the guy in the truck—which sustained no damage because, truck—just wanted to get back to work. Henrietta did exactly what a car is supposed to do—she crumpled where she was supposed to crumple and her air bags deployed before Vic even knew what was happening. The passenger compartment didn't even look like it sustained any damage. She gave her life for us. R.I.P., Henrietta.

At any rate, you'd think Vic would be pretty banged up, but this is him right after I picked him up. Not a scratch on him.

Now, in The Scallion we talked about going to the Colorado History museum. Besides Legorado and the baseball exhibit, the museum has an exhibit called Colorado in 100 Objects. It's in a fairly small room, but the stuff in there is amazing. I went to see John Denver's guitar:

But there were so many cool things. This is an old uniform for the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division:

This crazy quilt really moved me:

Love this old sewing machine!

And, being a sucker for history, I really loved this copy of the Colorado State Constitution:

But my very favorite exhibit was these pins. I don't know if you can read the card, but these pins were hand made by Japanese American prisoners at one of the Colorado internment camps. They're called gaman, which means "to bear the unbearable with dignity and patience." I can't shake the idea that out of such an atrocity grew these beautiful pieces of art. And it puts my own life in perspective, giving me the strength to carry on when my burden seems heavy.

Finally from the museum, here is another angle of Legorado:

And this beautiful display of autographed bats from the baseball exhibit:

Many of you may remember that in June, we had a huge windstorm. Then a hailstorm. Then another hailstorm. So we got a new roof this year!

When I left the house at 6:15 a.m. to go to work, I had an old roof. When I came home at 6:15 p.m., I had a new roof—and the roofers had cleaned everything so well that, had I not known we were going to get a new roof that day, I wouldn't have known anyone had even been there.

Now I want to move on to my favorite part of the blog: Miscellaneous Vic pictures. 😃

You may remember that last year, we grew an entire ear of corn. Well, this year, we really upped our game with cucumbers! I think we ate a cucumber a day for an entire month. And they were delicious. What will grow in 2019? Chocolate cake? Potato chips? (What did you think I was going to say, carrots? You should know me better than that.)

Also seen around the garden, this beautiful bumble bee ...

... this gorgeous butterfly ...

... and this cheeky hummingbird:

I really love our garden, and I feel like Vic tends it just for me. (That's right. I don't touch the garden. That's all Vic, all the time.)

Except for my pot. (No, not marijuana.) I plant a big pot every year in the corner of our yard, and I really loved this year's pot:

Now those of you who are on Facebook know that we live on the top of a hill, and our bedroom window faces west. So we see a lot of stuff like this:

And one more of my favorite kind of pictures: a Moon picture:

FINALLY, last year I created a whole blog post about how we couldn't get Bella to take a decent Christmas picture with us. Well, nothing has changed. We had to bribe her with eggnog this year. Here are just a few shots of our photo shoot this year:

 First, I bribe her by dipping my fingers in the eggnog:

Then she says "Let me smell your glass."

Then she leans in—"I'm not going to commit myself to getting in the middle—and devours her saucer of eggnog, jumping every time the camera clicks:

And maybe, just maybe, she'll stick around to take one picture with each of us.

Or maybe not:

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYBODY!

The 2018 Scallion: Look How Early It Is!

Merry Christmas, Scallioneers!

We let Bella write most of this year's Scallion, and she's a real overachiever, so we're actually getting The Scallion out more than five days before Christmas! Not like we would ever wait that long (cough last year cough).

We didn't hear anything from anyone about not being able to read the embedded Scallion last year, so we're doing that again this year! (Of course, my blog statistics tell me that no one read that blog post, so that may be why.)

But here it is, your 2018 Scallion!




Reminder: (See that icon on the right side underneath the box? If you hover over it it says Full Screen. That will open up The Scallion full size.)

One last thing. I know this year has been difficult for a lot of you—so much loss on such an enormous scale. Please know we are thinking of you and holding you in our hearts, and we are just a phone call away if there's ever anything we can do.

💗💗💗